


the winter of an angry sea

by themikeymonster



Series: brokemachine!verse [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 01:13:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14225886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themikeymonster/pseuds/themikeymonster
Summary: he watches himself fracture and then he watches as one stranger with one hand and a rattle of worried words manages to hold him together--being sergeant barnes is suffering, in various ways





	the winter of an angry sea

"Don't have to worry about nothin' if Jimmy's got a smile on his face," and he always has a smile on his face. He thinks. He tries to, anyway. A smile. A smile. Sometimes it feels like his skin will peel back and blood and maggots will spill out.

No, no, no. Nothing to see here. Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. James is always fine. (Is it James or Bucky? He was Jim to the men, at least until Steve showed up. Steve showed up. Oh God. Oh God, in Heaven, Our Father, please-

His gut is full of maggots and blood.)

He smiles. Everything is fine.

 

(

"James Buchanan Barnes, is it?"

Name, Rank, Number.

three two five five seven -

five seven five seven five seven

there is suppose to be more but

where is the rest of it

what is it

why can't he

r e m e m b e r

)

 

 

 

steve comes

why did steve come?

 

 

 

they injected fire and maggots under his skin, but the skin is fine, and he smiles.

he smiles

he s m i l e s

 

 

(they never stop screaming. the souls lost. explosions of red. meat and bone and blood. they dig into his skin and eat into his brain and scream, scream scream screamscreamscream-)

 

nothing's wrong.

 

 

reality warps and breaks. It's the first thing that James sees outside of his nightmares that actually matches, that's recognizable. Reality warps and breaks, and then they've got a stranger on base with dark, dangerous eyes and sharp smiles and straight white teeth like factory made bullets all in a row.

His nightmares walk in daylight. James is forced to face himself without flinching and it's terrifying, he's never felt more terrified in his life, not even when they brought that needle for his eye -

but this is something real, in the flesh that he can grapple with and so he does. flesh and bone and metal. god, the metal

(our father who art-)

he watches himself fracture and then he watches as one stranger with one hand and a rattle of worried words manages to hold him together.

 

 

he's felt full of maggots for months now, but the thing about maggots is that they eat

only in that instant does he feel hollowed out all of the sudden

a sharp, aching void that needs to be filled

 

 

he wakes up

steve's hand anchors where his shoulder meets his neck, tight and possessive only in the way steve gets when he's unconscious

an anchor point, but his ribs feel stitched together and bandaged by his own hands, desperate

steve, seeing but not knowing what to do about the fact that james is shattering right in front of his eyes

and james doing his best to hold himself together

and smiling because everything is fine

right?

 

 

you don't even like him, he thinks poisonously at the stranger with eyes like starless skies, who looks at james and sees right through him and is utterly unimpressed.

then: no, he doesn't like me, he realizes, and oh

 

oh

 

 

but he doesn't like steve either so james is in good company

 

 

there's not liking someone and then not disliking them and then there's "who are you?" as many times as necessary and watching carefully, not like something dangerous but like something worth looking after, with eyes that see through smiles more easily than words.

there's standing between someone and the world, less like a wall or shield and more like smoke and mirrors, distracting without denying or cutting him away from it. there's being hurt and hurting in return and no actual resentment over the entire mess of it, no grudges held or brought to bare.

there's seeing himself so fragmented it's as if a good hard wind will scatter him to snow and dust and ash, to the point where james himself begins to feel perfectly well adjusted, and seeing someone else see that very thing and just accept it like it's perfectly natural, perfectly understandable, and work around it the way one would a friend with a clubfoot, or glasses, or -

or a toothpick, glass-lunged man with a temper that's still barely constrained within a body capable of embedding a mental shield into a tank.

suddenly the maggots and fire under his skin don't feel quite as awful, quite as bad. if he can be made of snowstorms and ash and still be worth looking after, worth being around, worth being cared for and not out of obligations or familiarity or respect, then -

 

 

"what's so great about Tony Stark," he asks while bullet after bullet after bullet slides into place with a sharp click.

he looks at himself, strange and intimately familiar, foreign but identical, twisted but unraveled. "I don't have to tell you that," he says.

he doesn't. james already knows.

 

 

he's not james' type at all, but he watches himself watch Tony Stark and thinks there's always exceptions to the rule. the appeal is obvious, even to him. james doesn't usually love things as mad and mean as tony stark; eyes like pitch black swallowing seas and words like countless crackling volts of electricity.  

he doesn't usually

his own eyes like crushed ice, sharp and silent and utterly dispassionate, stare back at james with a steady purpose like a threat while the elder stark tells him something, a small, private smile pressed into the corner of his mouth like a secret, the dark mask of lashes that drop over eyes that glitter too familiar, too intimate in a space too comfortable between them. it isn't stark that placed them like that, but he doesn't shrink back and he isn't being polite, the constant companion of tension suddenly missing.

james steps back, too smart to intrude

 

 

tony stark tolerates him for the sake of his more worn, more damaged self, and against his better judgement, james falls in love with him for it, just a little bit. he wants to steal a part of him for himself, but knows better than to think he'll let himself get away with it.

his own nature, stripped of warmth as he's been, is far too much like the unshakable winter that settles in and without grudge, without malice, leaves behind bodies in alleys and ditches and in homes on particularly cold nights. without even hesitating, he'll strip the flesh from james' broken, maggot infested bones.

he can not expect mercy or succor from him or the equally dangerous man he's claimed as his own

 

 

steve is golden and bright with walls inside his eyes, his heart held tight and secret. they practically grew up together and somehow james doesn't know him any better than he did before. knows him less now, perhaps. two strangers acting like the best and most unbreakable of friends and fooling anyone and everyone who looks at them

(he can't fool himself. still lost years later, he thinks, across time and across worlds, lost but for a wall of smoke that softens the blow, a wall of mirrors that deflect every effort to inquiry

"do you hear them?" he asks as the maggots under his skin scream, shrill.

eyes like crushed ice stare blankly. "no."

he doesn't mistake it as a relief)

steve is like a beacon calling james home, except

(the home he calls james to no longer exists)

(did it ever?)

 

 

"wanna know a secret," tony stark asks. his dark eyes glitter, like shattered glass, like bombs bursting across a night sky, awful and arresting.

"no," james answers.

his smile is delphian. there are knives where his teeth should be.

 

yes, he understands the appeal very well. there is safety in loving steve, who either doesn't notice or is too kind to say anything about it.

there's nothing safe about loving tony.

(there's nothing safe about loving james, either

not after the fire and maggots have eaten away his humanity and all that is left is a frigid void where his heart used to be)

 

 

if tony whose eyes see through smiles better than words notices it, he doesn't flinch. if he fears any part of james, it doesn't show. he faced down steve and james both, and it only made him furious. james can see how it might.

usually he's thankful that there's no tony stark in their own world.

sometimes he fits the handle of his knife in his palm, just to feel its weight, and think.

(it stays sheathed. he already knows that pulling it will just lead to his own death, even if he were to win against himself in some twist of luck.

the maggots continue to feast)

 

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
